The Duke's Wife. Stephanie Howard

and he was a part of her. As she clung to him and kissed him, every inch of her was flooded with a sense of pure, exquisite joy.

      And that was when she knew she would love him all her life. He was part of her now and nothing could change that and her love for him would be the glorious centre of her life.

      The first couple of months were marvellously happy. He still didn’t love her, but he seemed to have grown fond of her and their sex life was wonderfully, greedily satisfying.

      ‘You’re going to wear me out,’ Damiano would sometimes tease her. ‘Wouldn’t you ever just like to read a book or something in bed?’

      And she would laugh and tease him back, turning away from him, ‘OK. No making love tonight. I’m going to catch up on my Shakespeare.’

      ‘The devil you are!’ He would grab her then and kiss her as they lay there naked in the big four-poster bed. ‘You can catch up on your Shakespeare once I’ve finished with you, young lady!’ And he would take her breast in his hand, teasing the nipple. ‘Though I’m afraid that may not be for quite some time. I can tell this is going to be another long session.’

      ‘Is that a threat or a promise?’ She would press against him, shivering, her heart tightening with excitement as she felt him harden.

      ‘It’s a promise.’

      ‘How do you know? Maybe I don’t want a long session. Maybe I really do want to catch up on my Shakespeare.’

      ‘OK, then. Go ahead.’ And he would pretend to release her. But even as she clung to him and moaned in protest he would be kissing her and turning her moans of protest into breathless, excited moans of pleasure.

      And Sofia would sink back against the pillows in surrender, losing herself in the cascade of sweet sensations that went tumbling over her in great drenching waves of pleasure.

      The secret of their glorious sex life was really very simple. Neither of them, quite frankly, could get enough of the other.

      Less than three months after their wedding, however, a second tragedy struck that rather took the edge off their happiness. Damiano’s mother died. Of a broken heart, it seemed, for she had never got over the death of her beloved husband.

      Damiano was devastated. Coming so soon after the loss of his father, the loss of his mother affected him badly. And though Sofia tried to be there for him she felt inadequate, almost useless. What could a child like her offer him? She was only twenty, after all. And it seemed to her that they started to grow a little apart at that point.

      There was something else too that was starting to trouble her, for Sofia had hoped she might get pregnant very quickly. She had always wanted to have lots of children; besides, Damiano needed an heir, and, more than anything, she longed to give him one. Especially now, after the tragic death of his mother, for surely it would help to ease the pain of his loss. It might also, it occurred to her, have another happy side-effect. It might bring them closer together again.

      But the months went by and nothing happened and she grew more and more upset, though Damiano assured her, ‘Don’t worry. There’s no hurry. There’s plenty of time. Just put it out of your mind and, you’ll see, it’ll happen.’

      But she couldn’t put it out of her mind and it didn’t happen. Suddenly she began to feel like a horrible failure.

      And it was around that time that she heard the first stirrings of the rumour that Damiano was seeing Lady Fiona again.

      Sofia ignored these tales. The possibility that they were true was a horror so huge that she dared not even look in its direction. Instead, she focused on Damiano. On trying to please him every way she could, in bed and out of it, desperate to make him love her. And then—miracle!—it seemed at last that the power to do so was within her grasp. Just thirteen months after their wedding, she finally became pregnant.

      That was a wonderfully happy time. Damiano was ecstatic, and so sensitively caring and so gloriously proud of her. Sofia felt herself blossom. It was all going to be all right now—a fact which seemed secure when a scan showed that the child was a boy. How could he not love her now, when she was about to give him his precious heir?

      During her pregnancy he made love to her with less and less frequency, though Sofia kept assuring him that the doctors had said it was all right.

      ‘I don’t want to take any risks. This baby is too precious,’ he told her. ‘And so are you,’ he added, kissing her. ‘Let’s just err on the side of caution.’

      Very well. Sofia accepted that. There would be plenty of sex later. And she felt a thrust of perfect happiness at the thought of all the joys the future held. Soon they would be a real family with a lovely little son. It was as though the stars had dropped down from heaven and kissed her.

      But then all that changed. Another wave of rumours reached her concerning Damiano and Lady Fiona. They stopped her in her tracks. She wept for days, but said nothing. And then she found proof in his waste-paper basket.

      She flung it at him in fury when he returned to their apartments that evening after a day of official duties.

      ‘I would like you,’ she spat at him, fighting back tears, ‘to kindly explain the meaning of this!’

      Damiano picked up the crumpled fax with infuriating calm. Glancing down at it, he demanded. ‘Where did you find this, if I may ask?’

      ‘I found it in your office waste basket! That’s where I found it!’

      ‘And what were you doing in my office rummaging through my waste basket?’

      Sofia glared at him. The truth was that she’d been looking for evidence, praying with all her heart that she wouldn’t find it, after storming down to his office late that morning to question him about where he’d been the night before. For he hadn’t slept with her and, when she’d gone to check, she’d discovered that neither had he slept in the room along the corridor that he sometimes used these days, since the advancement of her pregnancy, claiming that when he came home late he didn’t want to disturb her. But when she’d arrived at his office to demand some answers his secretary had told her he was out on an appointment, so, in fury, she’d searched first his desk then his waste-paper basket.

      But she didn’t tell him that. Instead, furiously, she told him, ‘It doesn’t matter what I was doing! All that matters is what I found! And, if you don’t mind, I’d very much like you to explain it!’

      Damiano said nothing for a moment and a look crossed his face that fleetingly suggested he was far from in agreement that it didn’t matter why she’d been rifling through his waste bin. But another look instantly replaced it, a look of sharp concern, as he took stock of her flushed and agitated face.

      He stepped towards her. ‘Sofia, sit down,’ he told her. ‘You shouldn’t be standing there like that.’ For she was half leaning against the back of one of the armchairs, her weight awkwardly balanced, as though she might topple over.

      He took hold of her arm. ‘Come on. Sit down.’

      Sofia tried to push him away and very nearly did topple over. And that made her feel worse. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was like a great ungainly whale these days, now that she had reached the eighth month of her pregnancy. Not like Fiona, who was slim and svelte and sexy!

      ‘Leave me alone!’ she started to protest. But he had already caught firm hold of her and was lowering her, whether she liked it or not, into the safety of the armchair.

      Then he sat on the arm and took her hand in his, though she clenched her fist tight and would not look at him.